The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

President Milquetoast

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

As the hours in the ‘Stan wind down, Twitter is alight with Talk Like a Pirate Day and the Rose Garden gumflap. I’m at the Green Bean by the main PX in Bagram, and they’re jack hammering to remodel the corner. You need something loud to block that, so I reach for Helmet. Then I’m thinking: what Helmet cut would afford the reader a short summary of BHO? Emphasis mine:


Milqutetoast

Tell me if you think it’s all right
I’ll give in to what you know
I don’t see the habits that
Become me
I’ve saved up my useless thoughts

Well means, it works I’m on your side
I said that? Well so, I lied
Remember I tried not to be wary
This failed me once too much

Unrecognized
Well preserved
Don’t forget what you heard

Feel the drums:

Bonus: maybe BHO gave us just exactly what we wanted.

Category: Barack Obama

‘Outing’ Ellen Page: The Politicization of Sex and the Sexualization of Politics

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 72 Comments

One of the unfortunate consequences of living in a sex-obsessed culture is that sex pervades and dominates everything, so that no subject can be discussed outside a sexual context. And this explains why I’m writing about Ellen Page, a 24-year-old actress whose name I’d never heard before I received an e-mail this morning.

Miss Page starred as a pregnant teenager in the acclaimed 2008 film Juno, which provoked much cultural commentary because of its pro-life theme. Yet the actress disavowed any pro-life motive of her own:

“I call myself a feminist when people ask me if I am, and of course I am ’cause it’s about equality, so I hope everyone is. You know you’re working in a patriarchal society when the word feminist has a weird connotation. . . . I very much am pro-choice.”

You see embedded in her comments a sort of sexual politics that didn’t exist 50 years ago, before “pro-choice” was a political category, before women had been taught to speak of themselves as feminists opposed to “a patriarchal society.” Many young people take this kind of rhetoric for granted, since it’s all they’ve ever known, but it reflects two trends of the recent past: The expansion of the cultural space involving sex, and the expansion of politics to include sexual matters previously regarded as private.

If an individual’s sex life has political meaning, the consequence is that no one’s sexual activity is truly private, as Miss Page discovered last month when a blogger named Christoph Topitschnig “outed” her as a lesbian — or at least, bisexual. Celebrity blogger Deana Barnert quoted Topitschnig’s argument:

“I gave Ellen Page a decent chance to come out with the truth,” Topitschnig posted on V-Generations. “Two months ago, I mentioned her in my LGBT article and made it pretty clear what she had to do. . . .
“I wrote: ‘In times like these when young gay people commit suicide out of fear of rejection, role models are needed. The gravity of the situation doesn’t ask for passive hiding but active fighting. What will Ellen Page’s choice be?'”

Consider the logic of Topitschnig’s argument: Miss Page has an obligation to disclose her (alleged) lesbian romances, in order to prevent “young gay people [from] commit[ing] suicide out of fear of rejection.” This seems rather a heavy burden for a blogger to impose on a young actress who, evidently, is still sorting through her own romantic/erotic interests: Confess your lesbianism, or gay kids will kill themselves!

And notice how Topitschnig portrayed himself as some sort of humanitarian for having given Miss Page “a decent chance” by waiting two months after his ultimatum before “outing” her. He “made it pretty clear what she had to do,” he says — just as Hitler once made it clear what Poland “had to do” about the Danzig Corridor.

That last analogy is no accidental violation of Godwin’s Law, for it is my argument that the politicization of sex necessarily entails a destruction of private life that is totalitarian in its implications. Miss Page was willing to accept a political dimension to sex insofar as it regarded being “pro-choice” and fighting the “patriarchy,” but I am unaware if she has commented on Topitchsnig’s “outing” blackmail.

Now, I said in the first paragraph that I had never heard of Miss Page until I got an e-mail this morning. That e-mail included a link to a new blog post by Toptischnig, this one quoting notorious left-wing blogger Mike Stark’s 2010 allegation that Rick Perry had a sexual affair with former Texas Secretary of State Geoffrey S. Connor.

Confess, Governor Perry, or gay kids will kill themselves!

And if you disagree with such tactics, they’ll smear you as a homophobe.

UPDATE: A commenter points out that Ellen Page makes it difficult to feel sorry for her. If her ambition is to become the next Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg or Rosie O’Donnell, she’s gotten a good head start.

Category: Celebrities, Culture, Gays, Hollywood, Sex

Day Of Rage. (Machine To Rage Against Not Included. Also, Violence)

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Smitty (via Iowahawkblog)


Yeah, “day of non-violent rage”: yeah.

Misfit Politics rocks. With them and Zo and Crowder, the Downfall parodies, &c one wonders: is there a conservative humor renaissance afoot?

Category: humor, Video

Arguably The Most Precision Bus Toss Since Bismarck

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

I read Showalter’s tome The Wars of German Unification for a War College class:

Taken together, three wars served to unify Germany and fundamentally altered the balance of power in 19th-century Europe: the Schleswig-Holstein conflict of 1864; the “Six Weeks’ War” of 1866; and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. They marked the establishment of Prussian hegemony in central Europe, the creation of the Bismarckian Reich in 1871, and, as a by-product, the reduction of Habsburg influence and the collapse of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. Showalter gives a full account of the international context as well as of the wars themselves and their consequences.

Old Otto was an 800 pound brain, playing the media like a ukulele. But each of the three conflicts got just a little gnarlier. The strategy increasingly outran the policy. The scuffle with France was intended to pull in the southern German states, and went a good way toward starting World War I a few decades early. Lacking Otto’s genius, WWI would arrive in 40-ish years. Oops.

One would not accuse anyone in the current Administration of being an 800 pound brain. If they are, they are totally getting their Sun Tzu on, looking befuddled to mask brilliance. Yid with Lid reviews the latest groans from the Mahmoud abyss: “We Will NEVER Recognize Israel As A Jewish State”. Read more

Category: Israel, Yid With Lid

Obama Explains That When He Says ‘Creating Jobs’ He Means ‘Raising Taxes’

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 9 Comments

That’s the upshot of the presidential speech this morning, during which Obama promised to veto any deficit-reduction legislation that does not include tax increase on the rich:

“I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans,” he said. “And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.

I’ll update later with the transcript, etc. Meanwhile, Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times notices the remarkable elasticity of “right now” in terms of Obama’s urgent insistence Sept. 8 that Congress should “pass this bill right now.” Obama’s $447 billion plan has not actually been written as legislation, and the Democratic Senate won’t even be ready to “move forward” on the yet-to-be-written bill until next month.

UPDATE: Perhaps I did not make sufficiently clear the logical contradiction:

  1. On the one hand, Obama says the need for job-creation is such an urgent crisis that the federal government must engage in $447 billion in new deficit spending.
  2. On the other hand, Obama insists that balancing the budget must require new taxes on “millionaires and billionaires,” siphoning off investment capital that might otherwise be used to . . . create jobs.

We suppose Paul Krugman will explain this to us. Because according to Paul Krugman, any damned Keynesian foolishness makes perfect sense.

UPDATE II: Video of today’s speech:

UPDATE III: Perhaps we should hear from someone with actual experience in job creation. His name is Herman Cain:

Today, the Obama Administration’s assault on the private sector continued. In yet another speech, he called for America’s job creators to shoulder an even heavier burden than they must already. President Obama promised that his efforts were not “class warfare,” but instead “math.”
Perhaps he could learn a lesson or two on math from me. I have a degree in mathematics and spent the earlier days of my career as a supervisory mathematician for the Department of the Navy. Then, I worked for 40 years as an executive in the private sector where I balanced budgets, saved failing companies and created jobs. Both obviously demanded a command of advanced mathematics.
Here’s what I can tell him about math: raising taxes on anyone, no matter their income level, will do nothing to stimulate our economy, create jobs or balance our federal budget. Increasing taxes on the private sector will destroy jobs, further damaging our economy and sending even less revenue to the federal government.
His eagerness to punish the private sector indicates he doesn’t understand the most important truth of basic economics: the private sector creates jobs. These are the jobs that pay for the food for our families, the roofs over our heads, the heat for our homes, the clothes on our backs, the schools for our kids and the plans for our retirement.
Perhaps his ignorance of basic economics is due to the fact that both he and more than 90 percent of his Administration have no private sector experience at all. Thus, they are all too willing to continually punish America’s job creators, all in the name of “fairness.”
President Obama’s once said, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” I agree. It doesn’t matter that he calls it “paying your fair share.” It’s still class warfare.

Obama’s problem: They don’t teach economics at Harvard Law School.

UPDATE IV: So what was this speech really about? Obama’s attempt to quell dissent from left-wing critics, says Ed Morrissey:

He issued this warning in a sad attempt to impress a few people on the Left with his “leadership,” but issuing empty threats isn’t real leadership. It’s an expression of political impotence.

Category: Barack Obama, Budget, Taxes

Tucker Carlson, Who Wouldn’t Reply to Greta’s E-Mail, Gives a Quote to Politico

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 126 Comments

The passive-aggressive response:

“One of the most famous athletes in the world attacks one of the of most famous political figures in the world. That struck us as news. We din’t [sic] endorse what Tyson said, we in fact condemned it. I can’t imagine how any fair reader of our story could conclude that we were anything but disgusted by what Tyson said.”

You could report that Mike Tyson said vile things about Sarah Palin without repeating those vile things, especially in the headline. But this is the Internet, where the repetition of vile things has become a kind of spectator sport.

No “fair reader” would have objected to an article headlined, “Convicted Rapist Mike Tyson Makes Crude Sexual Comments About Sarah Palin.” And I think a bit of judicious editing — paraphrasing the more egregious of Tyson’s remarks, rather than including them in direct quotes — might have prevented the kind of reaction the story elicited from Greta Van Susteren, Tammy Bruce, Jedediah Bila and others.

 

Category: Sarah Palin

Breitbart: ‘Fire the First Shot. Bring It On. Because I Know Who’s on Our Side.’

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 39 Comments

Da Tech Guy covered Andrew Breitbart’s appearance in Lexington, Massachusetts:

While we can’t hear the lady’s question — evidently it had something to do with violence perpetrated by SEIU goons — Breitbart’s answer has gotten a lot of attention from his enemies:

“I’m under attack all the time. You see it on Twitter . . . They call me gay. I mean, it’s just — they’re vicious, the death threats and everything. So there are times when I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself: ‘Fire the first shot. Bring it on.’ Because I know who’s on our side. And they know that they can only win a rhetorical or propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country and we have the guns.”

This is, after all, a statement of fact. Breitbart is merely explaining what crosses his mind in those “unclear moments” when he’s receiving death threats and being made the object of the Left’s (rather ironic) homophobia. So if the Left wants to “fire the first shot,” Breitbart is saying, there can be no doubt as to who would triumph in the resulting conflict.

Some people can’t deal with this blunt statement of reality. And there is a place for people who can’t deal with reality: Little Green Footballs.

Yeah. Doesn’t everybody?

Da Tech Guy has more thoughts on the LGF punchline.

Category: Andrew Breitbart, Da Tech Guy

Talk Like A Pirate Day, Twitter, And The NYT: ‘Tis A Merry Convergence

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 1 Comment



Category: New York Times
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